Fortune Community Centre was
started in April 2013 by 10 peers led by Charles Owino from the Kayole-Soweto
Community who were working in various schools as untrained teachers, watching
their bosses sending away vulnerable children from school due to lack of school
fee, they thought how they could better the lives of this bright poor children
whom some resorted to begging in the streets, the females ones resorted to
child prostitution. After the close of schools in term three in 2013, the
untrained teachers agreed to start a community centre to provide education,
economic empowerment and HIV and AIDS education including psychosocial support
to the vulnerable children and their care givers.
Our vision: Creating the future for orphans and vulnerable children and their
care givers.
Our mission is to be a leader in improving the welfare of
child in especially difficult circumstance, youth in crisis and care-givers of
the vulnerable children by enhancing opportunities for the development of their
full potential.
3.
Our Projects.
Education of Orphans and Vulnerable
Children and talent development Project.
Fortune Learners Centre
forms part of the projects undertaken by Fortune Community Centre. The centre
opened its door in January 2014. Apart from the orphans and vulnerable children
who do not pay anything, we also admit children from middle class families who
pay some small fee to help run the centre through motivating the volunteer
teachers, and food to the vulnerable children and other running costs. The
little they pay is not enough for the administrative costs and this has made
the project move from one place to the other wherever they are thrown out due
to lack of rent payments. They owe the school a lot of money by the end of term
not because they like but it is because they have little or no income to
support education of their children.
The Centre was established with the goal of
providing formal and non-formal education to the community members as a means
of preparing them to venture into sustainable self reliant ventures. The skills
we intend to impart at the centre under the non-formal section will include,
tailoring, beauty, dress making and hair dressing with the view of introducing
more courses soon.
Most of our children are orphans
living with well-wishers and some guardians and we would also be happy to build
a children’s home in future to provide them with shelter (children are
currently attached to our close community networks and available relatives
though they are supported, the public health department advised against keeping
the children at the building since it was not conducive for the night stays.
Other activities like sports and other arts (dance, singing, and drawing) are
considered means of nurturing talents within the community and bringing up a
responsible society. The centre has 169 Orphaned and Vulnerable Children
currently being educated and 33 who staying at the projects home are currently
attached to our networks in the community since the building is not conducive we are supporting them with
food wherever they are and we visit them regularly ,they will be back when we
manage to improve the building.
Fortune School-Kendu-Bay
This project
is based in Kendu-Bay Homa Bay County, this is the county with the highest HIV
infection and AIDS death rates in Kenya. Most of the energetic people die
living the old to take care of the AIDS orphans, Fortune cares for such
children, they are provided with education and meals. The project has 60 such
children but those in need are ever growing with the increase in AIDS and other
deaths in the community, they sit in stones due to lack of desks and only a few
have school uniform. They go through many abuses in the paces they leave
because others are just leaving with well wishers, the community have provided
land where we are looking for partners to help build them a school and a home
where they can be safe and acquire education. There is also need for initiating
an income generating activity for the care givers as well as HIV and AIDS
education in the community.
The projects
main is to provide quality education though the following objectives.
Objective 1: To provide serine learning/living environment for the
vulnerable children.
Objective 2: To provide the vulnerable children at the centre with
table, desks and chairs.
Objective 3: To provide the vulnerable children in the community
with text books to read.
Objective 4: To promote talent among the children living in the
slums of Soweto,Kayole and Kendu-Bay.
Economic Empowerment of Youth and Care-Givers of the OVC Project.
This project targets the families
of the children and other vulnerable youth and women in the community to
provide them with valuable portable skills for income generation and help
sustain the education of the children.
Suggested activities are:
ü Training
on entrepreneurship.
ü Training
on tailoring/dressmaking, hairdressing and beauty as well as providing
equipments and materials.
ü Training
peanut butter, pop corn making and provision of equipments and supplies for the
work.
ü Goat
keeping and block making in rural areas.
ü Training
on bead, bracelet, women purse and hand bags making from beads and recycled
polythene papers.
HIV Prevention and Gender Based Violence
Project.
Objectives
of the project:
·
To
delay sexual debut, reduce cases of teen pregnancies and STI and HIV infections.
·
Promote secondary abstinence or have protected
sexual intercourse and learning’s one’s HIV status improve community with a
trusted adult.
·
To prevent child trafficking and sexual violence
among children in informal settlement of Soweto, Kayole and Kendu-Bay.
This project protect the vulnerable adolescents
and youth ages 10-24 years from the vagaries of early pregnancies, child
trafficking, sexual violence ,STI and HIV infections as well as support teen
mothers return to school as well enroll their children .It achieve this through rolling out of
adolescent and youth life skills in slums equipping adolescents in and out of school with appropriate messages
to enable them make informed decisions in regards to health and life through;
Training of adolescents girls on life skills, Strengthening existing health
clubs in primary and secondary schools into Behavior Change Communication
Groups (BCCG), Organize debating events/forums for learning purposes, sensitize
, counseling of out of school teen mothers and recruitment and support health ambassadors in the community to carry
the message forward.